xciii. 1: "The Lord reigneth, He hath clothed himself with majesty,

&c., we remarked: "The Preterites are to be explained from the circumstance that the Singer as a _seer_ has the Future before his eyes. He _beholds_ rejoicingly how the Lord enters upon His Kingdom, puts on the garment of majesty, and girds himself with the sword of strength in the face of the proud world." A similar anticipation of redemption, even before the catastrophe has taken place, we meet with in Ps. xciv. 1. The situation in the whole Psalm, yea in the whole cycle to which it belongs, the lyrical echo of the second part of Isaiah, is not a _real_, but an _ideal_ one. This cycle bears witness that the singers and seers of Israel were living in the Future, in a manner which it would be so much the greater folly to measure by our rule as, for the people of the Old Covenant, the Future had a significance altogether different from that which it has for the people of the New Covenant. That which is common to all the Psalms, from xciii. onward, is the confident expectation of a glorious manifestation of the Lord, which the Psalmist, following the example of the prophets, beholds as present. A counterpart is the cycle Ps. cxxxviii.-cxlv., in which David, stirred up by the promise in 2 Sam. vii., accompanies his house throughout history.

Several interpreters cannot altogether resist the force of these facts. They grant "that other prophets also sometimes, in the Spirit, transfer themselves into later times, especially into the idealistic times of the Messiah," and draw their arguments from the circumstance only, that the latter again came back to their personal stand point, whilst our Prophet continues cleaving to the later time. Now it is true, and must be conceded, that this mode of representation is here employed to an extent greater than it is anywhere else in the Old Testament. But, in matters of this kind, measuring by the ell is quite out of place. In other respects also, the second part of Isaiah stands out as quite unique. There is, in the whole Old Testament, no other continuous prophecy which has so absolutely and pre-eminently proceeded from _cura posteritatis_. If [Pg 175] it be acknowledged that the prophesying activity of Isaiah falls into two great divisions,--the one--the results of which are contained in the first 39 chapters--chiefly, pre-eminently indeed, destined for the Present; the other,--which lies before us in the second part, belonging to the evening of the Prophet's life--forming a prophetical legacy, and hence, therefore, never delivered in public, but only committed to writing;--then we shall find it quite natural that the Prophet, writing, as he did, chiefly for the Future, should here also take his stand in the Future, to a larger extent than he has elsewhere done.

That it is in this manner only that this fact is to be accounted for, appears from the circumstance that, although our Prophet so extensively and frequently represents the Past as Present, yet he passes over, in numerous passages, from the _ideal_ into the _real_ Present.[2] We find a number of references which do not at all suit the condition of things after the exile, but necessarily require the age of Isaiah, or, at least, the time before the exile. If Isaiah be the author, these passages are easily accounted for. It is true that, in the Spirit, he had transferred himself into the time of the Babylonish exile; and this time had become Present to him. But it would surely be suspicious to us, if the real Present had not sometimes prevailed, and attracted the eye of the Prophet. It is just thus, however, that we find it. The Prophet frequently steps out of his ideal view and position, and refers to conditions and circumstances of his time. _Now_, he has before his eyes the condition of the unhappy people in the Babylonish exile; _then_, the State still existing at his time, but internally deranged by idolatry and apostacy. This apparent contradiction cannot be reconciled in any other way than by assuming that Isaiah is the author. As a rule, the punishment appears as already inflicted; city and temple as destroyed; the country as devastated; the people as carried away; compare _e.g._, chap. lxiv. 10, 11. But in a series of passages, in which the Prophet steps back from the _ideal_, to the _real_ stand-point, _the punishment appears as still future_; _city and temple as still existing_. In chap. xliii. [Pg 176] 22-28, the Prophet meets the delusion, as if God had chosen Israel on account of their deserts. Far from having brought about their deliverance by their own merits, they, on the contrary, sinned thus against Him, that, to the inward apostacy, they added the outward also. The greater part of Israel had left off the worship of the Lord by sacrifices. It is the mercy alone of the Lord which will deliver them from the misery into which they have plunged themselves by their sins. But how can the Lord charge the people in exile for the omission of a service which, according to His own law, they could offer to Him in their native country only, in the temple consecrated to Him, but then destroyed? The words specially: "Put me in remembrance," in ver. 26, "of what I should have forgotten," imply that there existed a possibility of acquiring apparent merits, and that, hence, the view of our opponents who, in vers. 22-24, think of a compulsory, and hence, guiltless omission of the sacrificial service during the exile, must be rejected. Vers. 27, 28 also, which speak of the punishment which Israel deserves, just on account of the omitted service of the Lord, and which it has found in the way of its works, prove that this view must be rejected, and that vers. 22-24 contain a reproof. The passage can, hence, have been written only at the time when the temple was still standing. Of this there can so much the less be any doubt that, in vers. 27, 28, the exile is expressly designated as future: "Thy first father (the high-priestly office) hath sinned, and thy mediators have transgressed against me." (The sacrificial service was by a disgraceful syncretism profaned even by those whose office it was to attend to it). "Therefore I _will_ profane the princes of the sanctuary, and _will_ give Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches." Even [Hebrew: vaHll] is the common Future, and to [Hebrew: vatnh] the [Hebrew: h] _optativum_ is added; and hence, we cannot by any means translate and explain it by: _I gave_.--In chap.